U.S. Imperialism Steps Up Ruthless Plunder and Exploitation of Latin American People

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Source: Peking Review, vol. 12, no. 36, 1969 September 3, pp. 22,31

U.S. Imperialism Steps Up Ruthless Plunder and Exploitation of Latin American People

BESET with difficulties at home and abroad and unable to find a way out, U.S. imperialism has intensified its barbarous plunder and exploitation in Latin America in recent years. As a result, the economies of Latin American countries have gone from bad to worse and the broad masses of the working people have been thrown into misery.

Profit Remittances Are 4-7 Times Direct Investments

For a long time now, U.S. imperialism has exported capital to Latin America, plundered its rich resources, extorted super-profits and shifted its economic crisis on to the area. It is reported that in 1968 direct private investments by U.S. monopoly capital in Latin America totalled 610 million U.S. dollars, or nearly three times the amount of the previous year. To date, direct private U.S. investment in Latin America has reached close to 12,000 million U.S. dollars.

Profits from U.S. investments in Latin America have always been fabulous. According to obviously watered down official U.S. figures, from some 10,000 million U.S. dollars in investment in Latin America, the United States extorted 9,772 million dollars in profits in the eight years from 1960 to 1967 — almost a 100 per cent gain. Statistics published early this year by the First National City Bank of New York shows that Latin America ranks first in the rate of profit for direct U.S. investments abroad. In the four years from 1965 to 1968, profit remittances from Latin America to the United States each year ranged from four to seven times the new direct investments made by the United States in the same year, the highest rate of profit in all the areas where the United States has made direct investments. In these four years, the United States altogether put 1,100 million U.S. dollars in direct investment in Latin America but remitted 5,400 million U.S. dollars in profits to the United States, nearly five times the investment. In 1967, the profits remitted to the United States by U.S. corporations in Latin America were 1,000 million dollars more than investment made the same year, and in 1968 the profit remittances were five times the new investments that year. As disclosed recently by political circles in Colombia, a U.S. company operating there earns an annual profit nine times its initial capital. All this proves that U.S. investments are a huge pump through which the blood of the Latin American people is being drained. The U.S. claim that its investments are meant to "help" Latin America's "development" is but unadulterated humbug.

Double Exploitation — Buying Cheap And Selling Dear

U.S. imperialism also gouges huge wealth out of Latin America through unequal trade relations. It has all along made Latin America a supplier of its raw materials and a market for dumping U.S. surplus goods. At the same time, it persistently pursues a policy of buying cheap and selling dear there, causing heavy losses in international payments to the Latin American countries through this double exploitation in imports and exports. As a result of this colonialist trade policy, the United States has long maintained a favourable trade balance with Latin America. According to official U.S. statistics, U.S. exports to Latin America in 1967 increased by 4 per cent as compared with the previous year; in 1968 they went up another 14 per cent as compared with 1967. On the other hand, Latin America's share in the U.S. import market declined from 21.2 per cent in 1962 to 13.2 per cent in 1968.

The Latin American countries have suffered from severer exploitation in import and export prices in recent years because of the U.S. practice of holding down the prices of Latin American raw materials and raising the prices of U.S. goods. Colombian political circles disclosed in June that since 1954, the export (mainly to the United States) of coffee, the chief product of Colombia, increased by 12 per cent while foreign exchange income from this dropped 42 per cent.

U.S. "Aid" — Usury of the Grossest Kind

"Aid" loans to Latin America are another U.S. imperialist means of enslaving and exploiting the Latin American people. These "aid" loans are actually a usury of the grossest kind which has thrown Latin American countries heavily in debt. Foreign debts, old and new, have been snowballing. According to statistics, foreign debts of Latin American countries have doubled since 1960, totalling approximately 20,000 million U.S. dollars. The outlay for repayment of debts in 1968 amounted to 36 per cent of the total export income of the whole of Latin America as compared to 25 per cent between 1955 and 1959.

In addition to the political conditions which encroach on the sovereignty of Latin American countries, harsh economic terms are also attached to the U.S. "aid." The recipient country, among other things, is required to spend the "aid" money on purchases of U.S. goods which are usually much dearer than goods purchased in other world markets. The U.S. Time magazine admitted in its July 11 issue: Since the launching of the so-called "Alliance for Progress" programme eight years ago, U.S. "aid" to Latin American countries has totalled 11,000 million U.S. dollars. However, this amount of "aid" actually "drifts back north in purchases."

As a result of ruthless plunder and exploitation by U.S. imperialism, the economic situation in Latin American countries has been deteriorating with constant currency devaluations, drastic price increases, more bankruptcies of national industrial and commercial enterprises, mounting unemployment, a sharp increase in foreign debts and the further impoverishment of the broad masses of the working people.

Our great leader Chairman Mao has pointed out: "The days of imperialism are numbered. The imperialists have committed every evil and the oppressed people of the world will never forgive them." It was not long ago that an unprecedentedly powerful wave of anti-U.S. struggle surged in Latin America, dealing a heavy blow at the big U.S. monopoly capitalist Nelson Rockefeller, "special envoy" of U.S. imperialist chieftain Richard Nixon. This vividly demonstrates the deep hatred of the Latin American people for U.S. imperialism and their determination to fight it.